1. On why Lego is producing so much more specialized pieces or “cheater” bricks now:

…in fact, the piece count has been reduced drastically and there’s a move back to roots in Lego, not only for creativity but to save money. Lego went from 12,000 different pieces to 6,800 in the last few years—a number that includes the color variations.

Sometimes larger bricks are used to help kids ease into building and help them complete the model faster so that they can get to the play experience. We have learned that there are many different types of builders out there – some are all about the building experience, but some are about the play experience. We try to balance our portfolio to appeal to both groups.

2. New train sets will be on sale in 2009.

3. Lego never made gun-like elements because they have a “no gun policy” for realistic or military play scenarios.

4. The plastic used to make Lego is almost the exact same plastic used 20 years ago, despite slight changes to the mix.

5. Over 1 million Mindstorms sets were sold globally, making it the best-selling set ever.

6. Standard pieces are called bricks. Flat ones that have studs are plates, the ones without are tiles.

While the heat wave is on it’s 4th day here in New York, heading towards its end in another day (hopefully), I decided to take a bold move last night — I slept without the a/c on, yeah, the unthinkable!!! I laid open my sleeping bag on the floor, put a sheet on top, and slept with the fan on and windows open, naked.

Well it’s true that I haven’t stopped sweating throughout the night, and when I got up this morning, it was hot. The morning sun was boiling hot. But the truth is, it wasn’t that bad. The fan was cooling, so it was hot but definitely not unbearably hot. As a bonus I didn’t have to walk out of the cold room in the morning and get into the heat — I hate that feeling. It was hot all along! There was no drastic change of temperature for me. I always thought it would be easier for me the handle the heat if I can get used it a bit more by minimizing my a/c usage.

One thing that I couldn’t avoid is the a/c at work. I have to stay with it for a good portion of the day, but it’s also the hottest hours of the day, so perhaps it’s not that bad afterall.

I was lucky enough to get my copy right when it’s launched here in the US, because I was lucky enough to be able to pre-order it, and I have been really having fun with it. According to the LA Times, Wii Fit was sold out immediately everywhere in the US, one of the possible reasons is the weak US dollar, because it is estimated that North America only gets 500k units of Wii Fit while Europe gets 4 times of that, 2 million units. Nintendo is trying to make more money elsewhere, despite the larger marketing in North America. Interesting.